News Tip: Reviving Draft Would Sway Public Opinion About War
Two Duke political scientists say that personal connections to the military do shape people's attitudes about war and casualties
Thursday, January 9, 2003
If the military draft were revived, as proposed in a bill this week by U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, it would make Americans more reluctant to support a war against Iraq, say two Duke University political scientists who have written a forthcoming book about American civil-military relations.
"It is true that having friends or loved ones in the military makes respondents more sensitive to casualties in opinion surveys," said Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, both associate professors of political science at Duke. "In one survey we conducted, respondents who reported having friends or loved ones in the military gave significantly lower estimates of the number of casualties that would be 'acceptable' to achieve a given mission."
Personal connections to the military also matter for political leaders. "Since 1816, a strong and enduring pattern has emerged: the more veterans there are in Congress and the Cabinet, the less likely the United States is to use force," the two professors said. "Veterans, however, are associated with a higher escalation of force. Think of the Powell Doctrine: use force rarely, but decisively."
In their forthcoming book, "Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force" (Princeton Press, 2003), Feaver and Gelpi surveyed civilian and military leaders and the general public to gauge their attitudes toward war and casualties. Feaver is also director of the Triangle Institute of Security Studies, a consortium of faculty from Duke, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Gelpi and Feaver say the draft proposal is "curing a patient from a disease it does not have because our nation's political leaders are already excessively preoccupied with combat casualties." They add that Rangel is "dangerously wrong" to want to make these leaders more wary about U.S. casualties.
"The record of the past decade or so is that political leaders have been excessively preoccupied with combat casualties," the two professors said. "Casualty phobia has been the dominant feature of the political elite. Moreover, the political elite has been convinced that the American public has demanded zero-casualty military operations.
"It is true that the Bush Administration has been less casualty-phobic than the Clinton Administration, but they have nevertheless gone to great lengths to minimize risks to U.S. soldiers. Indeed, casualty phobia has been seen as America's Achilles heel, the strategic premise behind the Al Qaeda attacks and earlier challenges from Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and others."
Feaver can be reached for additional comment at (919) 660-4331 or pfeaver@duke.edu; Gelpi can be reached at (919) 660-4318 or gelpi@duke.edu.